Homes by Vanderbuilt answers: What does it mean to be LEED certified?

A question we get asked often at Homes by Vanderbuilt is what is a LEED certification? A LEED certification is awarded by the US Green Building Council at varied levels of green performance.  In other words, the more you make your home eco-friendly, the higher the level of LEED certification can be considered. These measures are by no means easy to come by. The ranking system is very stringent and carefully inspected by a third-party to ensure verification.These are called Green Raters and can be found for each state in the USGBC’s Green Rater Locator. Note: All projects pursuing LEED for Homes certification also require performance testing to be completed by a qualified energy rater, a Home Energy Rating System Rater (HERS Rater).  Many Green Raters are also qualified energy raters (HERS Raters) and can provide both the onsite verification and performance testing services.

For most homes, obtaining a LEED certification can be very costly. Many things are factored into the rating and the decision to award a LEED certification. On the USGBC’s site, they have a PDF of the LEED Ranking System and a LEED For Homes Project Checklist as well as an eligibility requirements document found here.

Homes by Vanderbuilt modular homes are energy efficient and can be great candidates for LEED certification, but stand-alone, they cannot be LEED certified. What we mean by that is there are other factors beyond our scope of what we provide. For instance, one of the rating factors deals with water consumption, and that has more to do with the vegetation on your yard and the irrigation system you have. If you are interested in building a LEED certified home, we can get you started and “LEED” you in the right direction.

You can read more about LEED certification and Green Home Building at the USGBC site.